For Martins, the high street is only one aspect of modern banking. Trustee, Executor, investment and Foreign Services are just as important in creating new markets and income. Our Bank never rests on its laurels, and is always looking for new ways to bring its services to as many people as possible. On this page, we have brought together an A to Z of our “specialist” branches and services – here there are more than eighty examples of how Martins brings banking to the workplace, housing estates, a hospital, industrial sites – a surprising mix of sites and ideas that are testament to Martins’ desire to be first with innovation. You can visit the individual pages for many of these “specialist” branches by clicking on the appropriate link or leaflet below…

A is for Abattoir…

In this wonderful 1930s utility building, the Liverpool Public Health Department Meat Inspectors are busy, well – inspecting meat. We are not too sure of how cash rich the industry is here at Stanley Abattoir, but it is enough for us to operate a sub branch from 1925 until 1969. As we shall see later in this feature about Martins specialist branches, we do turn up in the most unlikely places, but perhaps they are only unlikely on the face of it. Our ability to sniff out money doesn’t usually let us down, and any number of meat inspectors and abattoir employees, not to mention those who trade with the abattoir and those other businesses on the site are all likely to have a need to obtain or get rid of amounts of cash. These are the days before instant payments, and even cheques are not widely trusted by the ordinary working man or woman. Therefore, with cash in charge to such an extent, a bank is a very useful asset to a workplace such as this. Stanley is our one and only abattoir branch, and as such has become something of a curiosity. We are especially pleased that Martins actually had someone take a photo of it for posterity!

C is for Cattle Market (and Auction Mart, too)…

Cattle Markets and Auction Marts throughout the land have all benefitted from their own branch of Martins Bank. There have been twenty five of them at various times in the Bank’s history, and some have survived into the twenty-first century. The blueprint for this tradition of banking must surely be YORK CATTLE MARKET whose story is told in a long but fascinating article from Martins Bank Magazine, and this can be found by clicking the appropriate leaflet below. We have images for all but five of the twenty five branches, indicated here by the leaflets showing the young bull – this is taken from the cover of the highly successful Martins guide “Finance for Farmers and Growers”. Some of our cattle market branches are little more than sheds, but you can be sure that our staff there will always go to extremes to be helpful!

C is also for Community…

Getting out and about… Martins’ involvement in the community is pioneering and also a little curious. Having used our mobile branches at agricultural shows and other events since 1948, it took nearly a decade for them to realise how useful these would be to encourage people on housing estates to use a bank. This is an idea that has most recently been resurrected by some of the banks who were bitterly chastised for closing too many rural branches and now hope to regain custom by turning up on the village green once a week. Martins Mobile Branches might look really old fashioned, but they fulfil a purpose, and raise the profile of Martins Bank all over the UK, turning up at some 80 or more agricultural shows and other events every year for twenty years…

Getting “closer to the working classes”… On the Ernesettle Housing Estate, Plymouth, a “social experiment” is under way, when Martins takes - and these are its own words - “the opportunity to get closer to the working classes” by opening a branch there. Ordinary wage earners are encouraged to swap cash for a bank account, and learn how to budget using cheques and bank giro credit slips. With the full backing Plymouth Council, Martins is given a small shop front at a cheap rent, and spends four years trying to attract “community custom”. The branch closes in 1962, and we have no record of its perceived successes or failures! The Bank at Lindisfarne… Fill your car boot with cash, drive across Lindisfarne causeway (at low tide of course) and call at the homes of the Holy Islanders to provide a banking service. No, not ancient legend or fairy tale – but FACT! Our intrepid Berwick Upon Tweed Manager really does go to extremes to be helpful in the days when car theft and being coshed over the head are relatively rarer crimes that they are today. Truly an example of community banking! Being Hospitalised… A bank in a hospital might at first seem like a strange idea, but again, we opened one when cash was still the currency of choice for hospital staff, patients and visitors alike. At Liverpool’s Broadgreen Hospital, our branch served up the money to spend at the WRVS tea room, or to use in the public phone, cigarette and chewing gum machines. This is actually one of Martins’ more successful “specialist” branches, operating from 1963 until the year 2000. We are aware of least one other Barclays hospital branch, at King’s Lynn, but it was closed down in the mid 1980s. It is sad to think that branches like these, once staffed with friendly and sympathetic faces are now gone altogether or replaced by cash machines… Anything to declare? No images or information here, but a branch is opened by the Bank of Liverpool in the 1890s at Liverpool Custom House. This office is listed as 21 Park Lane, and disappears from the radar on the 28 March 1927 whilst still a branch of the Bank of Liverpool and Martins.

D is for Drive-In Bank…

Picture the scene – you are proudly the only national bank to break with tradition and have your Head Office OUTSIDE London. This is a tremendous source of pride for your organisation and the City of Liverpool, and you set about ensuring that your bank does everything FIRST. A drive-in branch is planned for Leicester, and all is going smoothly, until the National Provincial Bank gets there first, by opening its own drive in branch, in LIVERPOOL! One can only imagine the rage, temper tantrums and throwing of toys out of prams that went on that day in the boardroom of our magnificent Head Office. Still, we shouldn’t dwell for too long on our own misfortune, and this single act by one of our rivals leads directly to us becoming the first UK bank to use computers to process our everyday work. As for drive-in branches, we opened TWO of them, so there!

E is for Exchange…

No images have yet appeared, but we are still on the look out for information and photos of our various “Exchange” branches. The oldest of these is opened by the Bank of Liverpool sometime around the 1880s. Berwick upon tweed Corn Exchange Branch is one of the branches of the North Eastern Banking company that we inherit in 1914, and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank provides us with branches at Manchester Exchange, and Manchester Corn Exchange, when it merges with the Bank of Liverpool and Martins in 1928.

F is for Forces…

This is the insignia of RAF Boulmer, the site of one of two branches of Martins that are provided for the convenience of the RAF employees. Sadly there are no images of the branches themselves, but we do have pages for them both. RAF Acklington is actually now HM Prison Acklington. Why we chose Northumberland to locate both of our RAF branches is a bit of a mystery, there have been, after all, hundreds of such sites to choose from over the years!

I is for Industry …

Industry means lots and lots of workers with wages, and one of the earliest schemes to have those workers access their money over the counter is the I C I wages through the bank Scheme. Unusually for 1959 our branch at the I C I Wilton Works in Middlesbrough (above, left)has a bandit screen, even though it is reserved for the exclusive use of I C I employees! The somewhat staged image on the right shows the Chairman of Wilton Works Council at our Redcar Branch, receiving his first “wages through the bank”, and proving the convenience of being able to access money at a number of outlets. One year earlier, a similar banking arrangement is made for those working on the vast industrial site at Aylesford Paper Mills near Maidstone. They too have their own exclusive sub branch, with access to wages when they want them. The Aylesford site went on to house television studios. In 1965 we repeat the exercise at the futuristic NORGAS site at Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne. Meanwhile, at Kew Bridge in deepest Middlesex, (before it moves to Surrey), Martins opens a branch in the British Wool Marketing Board building. It seems there is no stopping our insatiable appetite for the credit balances of the humble British worker, but will it be enough to stave off suitors in the future? Well, no – we know that – but it’s a damn good try all the same. Kew Bridge is the last of our experiments with the working classes, but there will always be other groups to target, as we shall later in this guide to our specialist branches…

S is for School…

…that’s SEDBERGH school in Yorkshire, to be precise, not just any old school, but one of this country’s finest. It is not until 1953 that a branch is built in the town centre of Sedbergh. Our association with the town actually begins with the establishment of our branch in Evans House at Sedbergh School. How spiffing to be able to cash one’s postal order on school premises, before raiding the tuck shop! Gaudeamus igitur, Iuvenes dum sumus. Post iucundam iuventutem. Post molestam senectutem. Nos habebit humus. (apparently).

and for SHOWS, exhibitions and Trade Stands…

We do love a good show, or exhibition. Our mobile branches already attend just about every agricultural show there ever was, but if you’re a travelling salesman, boy scout, or visitor to any number of ideal home exhibitions, we’ll be there too, with our range of imaginatively designed trade stands. Our love affair with shows begins with a six month stint at the North East Coast Exhibition of 1929. The following list is in date order, and comprises mostly those shows exhibitions and trade stands for which we have images on our TRADE STANDS page.

T is for Trading Estates…

Trading estates are seen by Martins as a potential source of income Taking the bank to the business makes good sense in the days before computerised and internet banking and we try our luck at three different estates in England and Wales. The first one opens at Team Valley Estate, Gateshead in 1937 in premises that seem way too large for a sub branch, and ten years later we add Wrexham Trading Estate. A branch at Gloucester Hucclecote follows in 1965. We have no pictures of Wrexham, which closes in 1957.

U is for University…

The ultimate cash cow for banks is the chance to have a branch on the campus of one of our universities – unbelievably large sums are paid to lease space on campus, and have the chance to attract the bank charge payers of tomorrow. Things have changed in the twenty-first century, and now that most students have to borrow their way through education, the attraction to banks of local authority grant payments is all but gone. Martins has branches at ten universities, and you can visit them by clicking on the these leaflets.

© gut informiert 2007 to date

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